


Caution, Contents Might Be Hot

by Moonsheen



Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: Awkward First Times, First Time, Getting Together, M/M, Morning After, Negotiations, Post-Canon, Slice of Life, some background past Kray/Galo if you really squint, sorry Galo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:08:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22069030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonsheen/pseuds/Moonsheen
Summary: Lio Fotia wakes up in Galo's apartment alone. Lio's determined to get to the bottom of why.
Relationships: Lio Fotia/Galo Thymos
Comments: 23
Kudos: 266





	Caution, Contents Might Be Hot

The alarm went off at 7 A.M. 

Lio kicked his phone off the bed stand. He’d mostly gotten over his habit of taking swings at whatever woke him up early, but he’d slept deeper and sounder than usual.

His dreams weren’t on fire anymore. He still wasn’t used to that.

At least he’d invested in a good screen protector. Lio fished the phone out and checked the time, idly sliding his hand back behind him on the bed. His hand fell across the empty space of the tossed-up sheets. His eye fell on the text that’d come in on silent at 5 A.M.

“TOOK EARLY SHIFT BREAKFAST IS ON THE COUNTER REMEMBER TO WATCH TIMER. I WANTED TO KISS YOU BUT YOU LOOKED SOOOOOO COMFY SEE YOU SOON”

He must have done it voice-to-text. Even phones could pick up on Galo’s intense capitalization. Lio sighed and swung himself out of bed. 

Navigating Galo’s apartment wasn’t hard. There was never any clutter. Never clothes on the floor, never a chair that wasn’t pushed back. Galo color-coded and categorized everything. Every potential loose wire, every potentially exposed outlet, every piece of electronics or furniture, were organized to match intense fire codes, some of which Lio wasn’t sure even existed yet -- and everything was always completely spotless. Lio found yesterday’s clothes stacked in a pile at the bottom of the hamper. He found his jacket on a hanger on the door. He found one of Galo’s work-out shirts in the top left drawer. He slipped that on and padded out into the hall.

Breakfast was on the counter: a covered tray with an olives and feta omelette, bacon (nearly charred, the way Lio liked it), and fruit salad painstakingly cut into little pieces. A large post-it written in shaky handwriting on the fridge said: “SHAKE INSIDE ♡♡♡♡ (please recycle this).” Lio uncovered a chocolate yogurt-and-mint shake that had only just begun to separate. How Galo had run the blender without waking him up, he had no idea, but he’d taken the time to unplug it, wash the insides, and store it on the drying rack. Again, perfectly organized for maximum use of space and minimum clutter. He might have even wiped down the counters. Lio didn’t check. He popped the tray in the microwave, set the timer like Galo asked him to, and watched the eggs begin to boil and pop in a dull, songless trance.

He’d almost forgotten how much he missed the songs. 

Lio folded up the note with the hearts and tucked it into his jacket on the way to the shower. He caught sight of himself in the mirror, under where Galo wrote: “LIO FOTIA PREPARE YOURSELF” in deodorant on the glass. The red marks showed up loud as anything on his neck. Peeling off the borrowed shirt, Lio took stock of them all. He traced tiny red bruises on his neck, the perfect red lines on his back, the tiny pale star-shaped scar on his chest from the Sub Zero bullet, surrounded by more marks, ending in the ones around his hips and thighs. He closed his eyes like he could call back the memory of how he got them -- then he glared back at his reflection, grabbed a hand towel, and erased the writing on the mirror. 

He turned the shower on to just short of scalding.

* * *

The garage door was open. Burning Rescue’s early shift had just returned from a call. A truck had overturned in the industrial district, crashing through the window of one of the department stores, causing a pile-up. The truck driver had escaped with two broken ribs and a concussion, and three commuters had been sent to the ER with whiplash. As casualties went that was fairly minor, but it had taken two matoi to extract the damaged truck from the side of the building. They’d had to put out the engine fire and redirect traffic. 

“Could’ve called me in if it was that big an operation,” said Lio. The chief was running diagnostics on the truck. “I was coming in anyway.”

“We had enough hands on deck,” said Ignis, “and Galo said you could use the extra hours of sleep. Not like him to put in a request like that.” 

He didn’t show any curiosity as to why that might be. In general, Lio liked Ignis Ex. He was unflappable and firm, and didn’t nose into his people’s lives any more than they allowed. Lio wondered how old he’d been when the Great Blaze had happened.

“Speaking of Galo,” said Lio, who after a lifetime of living off the grid wasn’t in the habit of volunteering personal information unasked. “Where is he, anyway?” 

Ignis jerked his head towards the workshops. The sound of screaming metal and hissing steam emanated from the reinforced door. 

The two matoi were getting hosed down. Standard procedure for post-mission. They wanted their joints clean for the next operation, and this early in the morning they’d need to go through their boot-up drills, anyway. Remi and Varys hosed down the empty unit. Galo operated the matoi undergoing the drill. Lucia supervised from her console. Vinny squeaked in moral support.

“That was supposed to be a step. A  _ step _ ,” muttered Lucia, keying something in to one of her screens. “Something wrong with the suspension?”

“Nah, it’s fine, Lucia!” called Galo. “Just trying something. I’m thinking of calling it a thrust shuffle. Think we can work it in with the upgrades? Bet some armor expansions could really use a maneuver like that.”

“I think I need to know if it can still lift its leg,” said Lucia, “but that’s insane. Let’s try it.” 

“Hey, Sleeping Beauty,” said Varys, shutting off the hose. “Finally decided to grace us with your presence.”

“For the time being,” said Lio. He stopped behind Lucia, arms crossed as he watched Galo’s matoi march back and forth across the training strip. “Wasn’t aware I’ve been promoted to royalty.” 

Galo’s matoi lurched forward, its fists crashing into the ground. The hose jumped. Remi had to brace himself to keep it from slithering out of his hands. 

“Int-er-est-ing,” hummed Lucia. “What are you thinking of calling that one?” 

“I just remembered,” said Galo. “We haven’t hosed down the suits!”

He extracted himself from the cockpit and jogged off of the range.

“Hi, Lio,” he managed over his shoulder, on the way out.

Varys and Remi exchanged a glance. All questioning eyes were all at once on Lio, as though he knew the answers to all of life’s mysteries, not just why on earth Galo Thymos would volunteer himself to laundry duty over testing matoi, his undisputed favorite duty in the station. 

“Don’t look at me,” said Lio, answering them all with his typical flat stare. “Your guess is as good as mine. If you need me, I’ll be suiting up.”

He stalked out the door and towards the locker room. No one had the nerve to follow him. 

* * *

It went like that for the rest of the day.

“Galo,” said Lio, leaning his head around the corner. “I’m taking lunch duty. Got any requests?”

Galo sat bolt upright on the couch in the common area.

“That’s RIGHT,” he said. “There’s a leak up in the loft. I’ll be RIGHT back -- uh, pita’s fine, just wrap it for me, thanks.”

He left just his indent on the couch.

“Galo,” said Lio, coming up on him while he was doing pull-ups on the bar in the loft. “We’re testing my new suit. We need someone to set the course.”

“Oh, can do,” said Galo, but when Lio waited to walk with him back to the workshop, Galo tore past him at light speed, sending Aina into a spin at the base of the stairs, and leaving Lio to pick his way after him. 

There was no grabbing him after the test run, either. Galo seemed to have taken it upon himself to do every single unclaimed duty on the station chore wheel. Galo needed to do the grocery run for dinner. Galo needed to test the fire extinguishers. Galo needed to load up the fuel cells. Galo needed to wash the stairwell. 

They received a call late afternoon. It ended up being a minor kitchen fire at the convention center, but it gave Lio the chance he’d been waiting for. The truck pulled in, undeployed. Galo gamely volunteered himself to doing the spot check on the Rescue-mobile while the Chief and Remi went to file reports, Aina and Varys worked on dinner, and Lucia returned to her cave. Lio made to follow Aina and Varys to the kitchens. He doubled back.

One of the handy things about having been an international criminal with a thirty-year career: you got real good at walking without sound.

“All right, Galo,” said Lio, cornering Galo in the hold, where he’d been rehanging the fresh uniforms. He dragged the door shut behind him and moved as Galo turned, closing the gap in an instant and thrusting an arm up against the wall before Galo could even dream of skidding past him. “Explain yourself.”

At which point he expected many things from Galo Thymos, but complete and utter collapse hadn’t been one of them.

“I’m sorry!” Galo burst out, screwing his eyes shut as he slid ramrod straight against the wall. “I’m real sorry! I wasn’t trying to make it weird! I just thought, you know, I should play it cool, you know? Super cool! Completely cool! I didn’t want to make it weird. Did I make it weird?”

“...You made it really weird. Aina’s been asking what I did to you,” reported Lio. 

“Aaaah,  _ damn it _ .” Galo covered his face with his hands, and wriggled with general displeasure, rocking the gear on their hooks. “Was the smoothie okay? I was worrying about how it’d keep, but I thought, you know, I think he’ll get it in time -- you saw the note, right?”

“Anyone would have seen that note.”

“Too much? Too much! Ah, hell.”

“Thanks for breakfast?”

“Oh, good!” Galo stopped vibrating. He dropped his hands, face brightening by just a fraction. The vibration was replaced instead by an intense wringing of his hands as Galo tried to figure out just how to position himself. His foot began tapping like mad against the bottom of the truck. “Only the best! I got the olives from the farmer’s market down on Fourth. You should check it out sometime! I mean. If you liked it. I hope you liked it. You liked it, right?” 

“I did like it, but Galo -- Galo--” Lio began to follow Galo’s gaze with a confused little jerk of his head, and gave up when he started to get dizzy. He reached over and grabbed Galo’s face between his hands. That, finally, encouraged him to go still, if red as the fire engine. “What’s all of… this?”

“Nothing!”

“You’re doing a lot of twitching for 'nothing.'"  


“I’m excited!”

“Excited by what?”

“The daily heroics of a top firefighter!”   


“You pulled up a capsized truck and sprayed down a dish fire.” 

At which point the last of Galo’s normal blazing resolution completely and utterly fell apart. “Okay, it’s not just that, it’s just...”   
  
“Just?”   
  
“I REALLY LIKE YOU,” burst out Galo, loud enough Lio had to tilt his head back to keep from getting it right in the ear. “I REALLY, REALLY LIKE YOU, LIO.”   


And then he bit his gloved hand, as though he could shove those dangerous words right back into his mouth. Lio stared at him, an arm’s length away, miserable and flushed and half hidden in the uniforms at that point.

Then, slowly, Lio slid his hand up his cheek.

“Galo,” said Lio, very slowly, and very carefully, because he knew a confession like that generally didn’t come easily, but... “...We have literally already had sex. Last night, even. And before that we’ve been seeing each other for a _year_. We piloted a matoi to save the world together. I think I noticed.”

Even more slowly, Galo stopped trying to push himself against the wall. His head tipped forward enough that Lio could rock on his heels and force them forehead to forehead, force him to meet his eyes -- though Galo winced and looked away a second later.

No. That wouldn’t do. Last night he’d looked Lio in the eye.

“Eeh, but that’s just it,” he said, rubbing his arm. “I wasn’t sure how you wanted to play it.”

“Play it?”

“Yeah,” said Galo. “Sex, I mean. Like, it’s not completely against regulation. You’re a volunteer and all, and I disclosed it with the captain right away.”

“Did you,” said Lio. Suddenly that conversation with Ignis got a lot more retroactively awkward.

“Because I had to! But no one else. But, you know, I get it if you need some distance from it? But I don’t know if I want distance. I know -- I know -- that’s not exactly the cool thing to do. But I SUPER like you. We’re partners. Your burning desire and my desire to protect the world! And I don’t want that to change? I don’t want to have to not have to be around you? When I saw you this morning I was like, ‘Wow, I really want to get back into bed with him,’ and then I was like, ‘Wow, that is SUPER inappropriate,’ and then I thought, ‘Wow, I don’t really want to be apart from this guy,’ and that it would royally SUCK if you didn’t want me around, and then I decided, you know what brain, that’s enough thinking from you today! And so I stopped.” 

Galo paused to take a breath. He could do a lot without breathing. Rescue training was really good for that. 

Lio sifted through everything he’d just heard. That’d been a lot.

He settled on that last bit. “Why wouldn’t I want you around?” 

“Mm,” said Galo.

“Because I fucked the ever living hell out of you last night?”

Because he had, actually. Very thoroughly. Several rounds. Lio had ground on him until they’d both come in the living room, right before he’d ridden him for half the night in the bedroom, sideways on the bed, with the lights from the bodega across the street pouring in through the window. He’d had his forehead against that window at one point. The spatter of rain from outside had made their moving reflections look full of stars. All Lio could manage to say was ‘yes’ and ‘finally’ and ‘you’re so damn good at this, Galo.’ It’d been a long time coming. Lio had enjoyed every blazing moment of it. 

He’d almost heard the songs again.    
  
“Mmm,” said Galo.

Lio took a deep breath. “I never took you as the kind of guy to get nervous about this kind of--” He stopped. No. Wait. That wasn’t going to work. It was his turn to rub the bridge of his nose. Where to even  _ start _ ? “Idiot. I don’t sleep with people I don’t like. I--”

He didn’t have much of a chance to get much further. Galo let out a little sound that was halfway between a whining dog and a sigh of relief. He threw his arms around Lio, enveloping him in one of those crushing hugs Lio had dreamt about the night before he woke up alone. Lio accepted it. It was hard not to, when Galo was bending him almost backwards and he had to get up on his toes and put an arm around his neck to keep from backpedaling into the situation screens. 

“Good,” muttered Galo, pressing his face against Lio’s. Lio could feel his smile. His helpless, aching smile. “I’m glad. I’m real glad. I didn’t really want to pretend like it didn’t happen. I’m glad it did. I want it to happen again!” 

“Oh, it will happen again,” said Lio, fiercely, curving his fingers over the buzzed back of Galo’s head. “And I don’t care who knows. Everyone here probably thinks we've already been doing it, anyway. They might even think we’re doing it right now.”

“We would definitely have to move the equipment first,” said Galo, automatically. “We can’t short something out!” Lio raised an eyebrow at him. Then Galo broke into one of his huge, sunny grins, and he knew it would be all right. 

“I’m going to kiss you now, all right?” 

“Yeah?”

“A lot,” emphasized Lio. “Prepare yourself.”

Galo’s eyes glinted. “Bring it on, Lio Fotia.”

Oh, Lio brought it. It felt like fire between their lips. Lio had his hands braced on his shoulder, ready to climb him like a mountain -- but spatial awareness came back to him like a bad memory. He pulled away and pressed the back of his hand to his hungry, chapped lips.

“Any regulations about doing it in the Rescue-mobile?” muttered Lio.

“It’s public property,” said Galo, mournfully. 

Lio sighed, but he gave him one more long, lingering kiss, twisting his hands in his hair, just to feel the texture between his fingers.

“It’s been a while since I've slept with anyone,” admitted Lio, shoving his hands in his jacket as they strolled down the ramp. The late afternoon light filtered a hot orange through the high windows of the garage. Had it been ten years now? He wasn’t entirely sure. The years blurred together on the run. “Is this a thing nowadays? Not talking to each other in the morning?”

“I don't know,” admitted Galo. He’d started thinking again. For Galo, this was a full body process. He stretched his arms over his head and stared up at the rafters. “It's how it's always been for me.”

“Shit, Galo. That's not -- sleep with better people!”

“I guess I already am?” 

“Have standards! Make demands! A shower and breakfast as a bare minimum, at least!”   
  
“...We can do that?!” 

“That’s it. Once our shift is over, I am taking you on a date. We are going to go out. I am going to buy you dinner. We are going to come back to the apartment and we are going to fuck like MAD.”

“Uh,” said Galo, freezing in place. 

They’d just walked into the common area.

Where Varys and Remi had just set out the pasta they’d dethawed for dinner. And where Aina had been on the phone. And where Lucia had been doing their nails. And where the Chief had been watching the game. And where Vinny was trying to sneak away with a piece of the reheated calzones Varys had set out as a side. And where everyone was now looking at them both having just walked through the door. And where ‘fuck like MAD’ was now echoing off the rafters far more loudly than physics should’ve really strictly allowed.

“Heris, I’m going to call you back,” said Aina.

Lio decided to face this the way he’d faced all obstacles in his very long, very difficult life:

“And afterwards you are going to SLEEP IN so that I can respect the hell out of you in the morning,” finished Lio, his chin raised and his jacket around his shoulders like a king’s cloak. He threw himself across the lounge. “And I’ll make you pancakes.” 

“Hell yeah,” said Varys. “I’d sleep with you for pancakes.”

“Are you seriously that easy,” said Remi. 

But Galo didn’t hear any of this. He just stared at Lio, his eyes full of stars.

“I get pancakes?”   
  
“With blueberries,” said Lio, burning with intent. “If they have any at the farmer’s market.”

“Hell YEAH, pancakes!” said Galo. 

“Uh, congrats?” asked Aina. 

“Then it’s settled,” said Lio. He crossed his ankle over his knee and leaned back. All was right with Galo. He could afford to acknowledge the rest of the world. He could be charitable. “What’s for dinner?” 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> with thanks to Chira, who lent me her Galo for this endeavor.


End file.
